Orchids woo me with their elegance. If they spoke, opened up their petals as lips and breathed words, their cadence would roll off their tongues with eloquence. In their presence, I am drunk on beauty. I study the lines of their face. Trace with my eyes the silhouette of their tender, tall strength.
I marvel and stare. Feel drawn in by their fragile soil-birthed beauty. All my senses feel alive when I am in their presence. Every stem, petal, bulb, and leaf bear something of natural wonder.
And then they leave me. Go dormant. And I struggle to care for them. I cannot seem to meet their needs. Tend to them in the proper way. They are the Rubik’s cube of my world. And then, as with many things circling around my soul places these days, I hear what I could not hear before. I really listen. I listen to things I did not formerly hear. I know. And I am renewed by their lessons.
All around my yard, in the garden, in my home, in my art, things are being born. I hold a vigil of uncertainty. I cannot seem to fall into their rhythm. I am an impatient observer and an anxious excavator of beauty. I believe that I am on guard and alert. I believe that I am eyes-wide open and prepared to receive. I am the citadel guarding the places of new birth. Caretaker of the ordinary and of my art.
But I have not allowed for the full mystery of surprise in all the ordinary and extraordinary things. I have not factored in the unknown. The goings on under the soil. The backstage preparations behind the veil. I am not leaning into the marvelous perfection of the timing of the Spirit of God.
And trust is thrust into the light. Once again.
I feel as though I am doing my part. With my art. Wrapping my soul in words. Preparing the phases and stages of my poetry and prose to fling them out of the nest. Into the spine of a book. Out of one cradle into another. Into the places that hunger for words of hope and faith.
But this a dormant time. Ripening and waiting are part of the care package. Waiting and trusting the unseen things is faith. Breathing out while breathing in and knowing the next breath will come and with it new mercy. That is my designated role. Trusting while breathing.
Living with hopeful expectancy.
The orchid that I held onto for a long forever will bloom a second time. The one that I almost walked to the trash can and tossed. The first one of my orchids to bloom again holds signs of beauty a second time.
The bloom is tightly held. It is wrapped and protected. It is just as it should be. Dormant and alive.
I trust my poetry and prose are held in this same place. Of tender waiting. And I trust the cradle will rock and toss a bit, yet, protect my art in every stage before the release.
The spines of a book, they may or may not be out there. But I am waiting and watching. Expecting with renewed hope and wonder. Because my orchid will bloom again.
++++++++++++++++++++
Joining beautiful writer friend and blogger Kelly Chripczuk over at A Field Of Wild Flowers
elizabeth w. marshall 